Pages

Life is too short to eat bad food! Sharing great recipes, farm life, stories and photography from our Northern California dairy farm.

December 8, 2011

Got Oysters? Wanna Keep Them Around?

Are you an oyster fan? The situation that is currently happening in West Marin at Drakes Bay Oyster Company, a family farm, will impact you whether you live locally or across the United States. The letter and information that follows was put together by my friend, Nancy Gates, with Marin County Farm Bureau. I hope you will take the time to read through it. Thank you!!

Photos courtesy Google Image

Dear family, friends and colleagues across the country,

As most of you already know, through my work as a director of the Marin County Farm Bureau I've joined a community of advocates of sustainable farming and ranching policy. Today, there is a threat in the form of a controversial attempt by the National Park Service to shut down Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC), a family-run oyster farm currently operating in the Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS).

Many are concerned that if DBOC is forced out, not only will California's largest shellfish producer be eliminated but there will be a clear roadmap for eradicating the rest of agriculture in the PRNS pastoral zone, and as the farming dominoes fall, so will a critical mass of agricultural infrastructure, putting the future of agriculture, mariculture, organic food, agritourism and open space at risk in Marin County, in California and beyond.

A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is open for public comment until this Friday night, representing an opportunity for you to join me and others in voicing support for the oyster company's ability to continue its ecologically-friendly and economically-important shellfish operation beyond 2012 when its current lease will expire. Both the Marin County Farm Bureau and the California Farm Bureau Federation are submitting comments in support of a renewable Special Use Permit (SUP). Astoundingly, none of the proposed alternatives offered by the NPS would allow for the continuation of the oyster farm, so sustainable food production advocates are urging support for a Collaborative Management Alternative as the Preferred Alternative.

“I support adoption of the Collaborative Management Alternative that includes a ten-year Special Use Permit with Option for Extension as the preferred alternative in the final DBOC SUP EIS.”

If you would prefer to send a hard-copy letter, you may mail it to the Park Service headquarters at this address:
Draft EIS DBOC SUP c/o Superintendent
Point Reyes National Seashore
1 Bear Valley Road
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956

You may also incorporate talking points from some supportive websites (links below), and/or add your own comments.